Judgment for plaintiff, 11 F. Supp. 2d 1099, Judgment affirmed, 192 F.3d 1142. On writ of certiorari to the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit

Holding

Laws banning partial-birth abortion are unconstitutional if they do not make an exception for the woman's health, or if they cannot be reasonably construed to apply only to the partial-birth abortion (intact D&X) procedure and not to other abortion methods.

The Nebraska statute prohibited "partial birth abortion", which it defined as any abortion in which the physician "partially delivers vaginally a living unborn child before killing the unborn child and completing the delivery." The most common type of abortion performed is suction-aspiration abortion which consists of a vacuum tube inserted into the uterus; others consist of what is known as "D&E" (dilation and evacuation), which is usually used during the second trimester because of the increased amount of fetal material. The procedure dilates the cervix and removes some fetal material with non-vacuum instruments, and, in some cases, uses curettage inside the uterus so that fetal material can be evacuated. Dr. Carhart wanted to use a modified version of this called "D&X" (Dilation and Extraction), which, rather than commencing curettage inside the uterus, extracts part of the fetus first and then begins the process of dismemberment. Carhart stated that he wanted to perform this procedure because he believed it would be safer and would involve fewer risks for the women; it lowered the risk of leaving potentially harmful fetal tissue in the uterus, and it minimized the number of instruments physicians needed to use.

Experts in fetal development provide markedly different assessments of the kind and degree of pain (if any) experienced by the fetus (see Fetal pain). Although in the second and third trimesters the nervous system is largely in place, the level of consciousness or awareness of the fetus is a matter of debate. Experiments aimed at measuring fetal pain have yielded results that are somewhat open to interpretation, given that measurable reactions of the fetus to stimuli may not correspond directly to an adult experience of pain.

The medical and scientific questions surrounding partial-birth abortion are impacted in the public arena by political and special interest considerations, resulting in a certain degree of media hype surrounding this case. Proponents of abortion rights on the one hand and the right-to-life on the other both decry what they describe as myths regarding this procedure that have passed into mainstream American debate on the issue.

The case was argued in 2000. The first issue was the lack of an exception for the woman's health. The state of Nebraska took the position that D&X abortions were never medically necessary, meaning that an exception was not needed. Secondly, it was inquired on whether or not the law could be construed to apply to other forms of abortion, in which case it would violate the "right to privacy" interpreted from the Constitution, as described in the Roe and Casey decisions. The law had never been certified to the Supreme Court of Nebraska, as it had been challenged two days after the law was passed.

Justice Stephen Breyer, in writing the opinion of the Court, cited Planned Parenthood v. Casey and said that any abortion law that imposed an undue burden on a woman's "right to choose" (abortion) was unconstitutional. He said that causing those who procure abortions to "fear prosecution, conviction, and imprisonment" was an undue burden, and therefore declared the law to be against the Constitution. Justices John Paul Stevens, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, David Souter, and Sandra Day O'Connor all agreed that the law was unconstitutional, but Ginsburg wrote a separate opinion, as did O'Connor. Ginsburg stated plainly that a state could not force physicians to use procedures other than what they felt in their own judgment to be the safest, that this was part of the "life and liberty" protected under the Constitution. O'Connor agreed, saying that any such procedural law would have to be applied only to prevent unnecessary partial-birth abortions, and would have to include an exception for the health of the woman (as this law did not). Justice Stevens also filed a separate opinion. He noted that government had no right to force doctors to perform any procedure other than what they felt would be the safest.

Justice Anthony Kennedy dissented. Kennedy claimed this type of law was allowed by their ruling in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, which allowed laws to preserve prenatal life to a certain extent. He called Sandra Day O'Connor's behavior a "repudiation" of the understandings and assurances given in Casey. Justice Kennedy also detailed what he deemed a constitutionally protected alternative to partial-birth abortion. In a short separate opinion, Chief Justice Rehnquist stated that he did not join Casey but felt that Justice Kennedy had applied its precedent correctly, and thus joined his opinion.

Justice Clarence Thomas read his dissent from the bench when the decision was announced, stating that abortion was not a right contained in the Constitution, and sharply criticized the majority and concurring opinions. Chief Justice William Rehnquist, along with Antonin Scalia, and Thomas had consistently said that they did not believe abortion is a protected right, and had pointed out that "privacy" is not explicitly mentioned in the Constitution. Thomas also pointed out in his dissenting opinion that even if abortion was a woman's right, the law in question was not designed to strike at the right itself. He reminded the others that many groups, including the American Medical Association, had concluded that partial-birth abortion was very different from other forms of abortion, and was often considered infanticide. Thomas further noted that the gruesome nature of some partial-birth abortions has caused personal trauma in the doctors performing them.

In his dissent, Justice Scalia recalled his prior dissent in Casey in which he had criticized the undue burden standard as "doubtful in application as it is unprincipled in origin." What constitutes an undue burden is a value judgment, argued Scalia; it should therefore be no surprise that the Court split on whether the Nebraska statute constitutes an undue burden. Scalia moreover chastised Kennedy for feeling betrayed by the majority. Scalia declared that the Stenberg decision was not "a regrettable misapplication of Casey,"—as Kennedy claimed—but "Casey's logical and entirely predictable consequence". Denouncing the undue burden standard of Casey as illegitimate, Scalia called for Casey to be overruled.

By a 5-4 majority, the Nebraska law was struck down, as were all other state laws banning partial-birth abortion. In 2003, however, the federal government enacted a Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act. This law did not include an exception for the health of the woman, as Justice O'Connor said it must. Congress inserted findings into the law saying that the procedure is never needed to protect maternal health. Although several federal judges struck down this federal law, citing the precedent of Stenberg v. Carhart, it was eventually upheld by the Supreme Court in Gonzales v. Carhart.

The Supreme Court's decision in Gonzales v. Carhart concerns similar questions as those in Stenberg, but this time in the context of a federal statute. The decision in Gonzales v. Carhart has narrowed the holding in this case; the cases are largely indistinguishable and can be explained only by the substitution on the Court of Justice Samuel Alito, who voted to uphold the law, for Justice O'Connor.

1.
Supreme Court of the United States
–
The Supreme Court of the United States is the highest federal court of the United States. In the legal system of the United States, the Supreme Court is the interpreter of federal constitutional law. The Court normally consists of the Chief Justice of the United States and eight justices who are nominated by the President. Once appointed, justices have life tenure unless they resign, retire, in modern discourse, the justices are often categorized as having conservative, moderate, or liberal philosophies of law and of judicial interpretation. Each justice has one vote, and while many cases are decided unanimously, the Court meets in the United States Supreme Court Building in Washington, D. C. The Supreme Court is sometimes referred to as SCOTUS, in analogy to other acronyms such as POTUS. The ratification of the United States Constitution established the Supreme Court in 1789 and its powers are detailed in Article Three of the Constitution. The Supreme Court is the court specifically established by the Constitution. The Court first convened on February 2,1790, by which five of its six initial positions had been filled. According to historian Fergus Bordewich, in its first session, he Supreme Court convened for the first time at the Royal Exchange Building on Broad Street and they had no cases to consider. After a week of inactivity, they adjourned until September, the sixth member was not confirmed until May 12,1790. Because the full Court had only six members, every decision that it made by a majority was made by two-thirds. However, Congress has always allowed less than the Courts full membership to make decisions, under Chief Justices Jay, Rutledge, and Ellsworth, the Court heard few cases, its first decision was West v. Barnes, a case involving a procedural issue. The Courts power and prestige grew substantially during the Marshall Court, the Marshall Court also ended the practice of each justice issuing his opinion seriatim, a remnant of British tradition, and instead issuing a single majority opinion. Also during Marshalls tenure, although beyond the Courts control, the impeachment, the Taney Court made several important rulings, such as Sheldon v. Nevertheless, it is primarily remembered for its ruling in Dred Scott v. Sandford, which helped precipitate the Civil War. In the Reconstruction era, the Chase, Waite, and Fuller Courts interpreted the new Civil War amendments to the Constitution, during World War II, the Court continued to favor government power, upholding the internment of Japanese citizens and the mandatory pledge of allegiance. Nevertheless, Gobitis was soon repudiated, and the Steel Seizure Case restricted the pro-government trend, the Warren Court dramatically expanded the force of Constitutional civil liberties. It held that segregation in public schools violates equal protection and that traditional legislative district boundaries violated the right to vote

2.
William Rehnquist
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Considered a conservative, Rehnquist favored a conception of federalism that emphasized the Tenth Amendments reservation of powers to the states. Under this view of federalism the Court, for the first time since the 1930s, the last 11 years of Rehnquists term as chief justice marked the second-longest tenure of a single unchanging roster of the Supreme Court, exceeded only between February 1812 and September 1823. He is the justice in Supreme Court history. Rehnquist was born William Donald Rehnquist in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on October 1,1924 and he grew up in the suburb of Shorewood. Rehnquist changed his name to Hubbs, a family name. His paternal grandparents immigrated from Sweden, Rehnquist graduated from Shorewood High School in 1942. He attended Kenyon College, in Gambier, Ohio, for one quarter in the fall of 1942 and he served from March 1943 –1946, mostly in assignments in the United States. He was put into a program and assigned to Denison University until February 1944. He served three months at Will Rogers Field in Oklahoma City, three months in Carlsbad, New Mexico, and then went to Hondo, Texas, for a few months. He was then chosen for training program, which began at Chanute Field, Illinois. The program was designed to teach the maintenance and repair of weather instruments, in the summer of 1945, Rehnquist went overseas as a weather observer in North Africa. After the war ended, Rehnquist attended Stanford University with assistance under the provisions of the G. I, in 1948, he received both a Bachelor of Arts and a Master of Arts degree in political science. In 1950, he attended Harvard University, where he received another Master of Arts and he later returned to Stanford, and graduated from the Stanford Law School in the same class as Sandra Day OConnor, with whom he would later serve on the Supreme Court. Rehnquist graduated first in his class, Rehnquist went to Washington, D. C. to work as a law clerk for Justice Robert H. Jackson of the United States Supreme Court during the courts 1952–1953 term. Rehnquists 1952 memo, entitled A Random Thought on the Segregation Cases, Rehnquist said, I believe that the memorandum was prepared by me as a statement of Justice Jacksons tentative views for his own use. Justice Jackson did not ask law clerks to express his views and he expressed his own and they expressed theirs. That is what happened in this instance, however, the papers of Justices Douglas and Frankfurter indicate that Justice Jackson voted for Brown in 1954 only after changing his mind. However, Rehnquist acknowledged defending Plessy in arguments with fellow law clerks, several commentators have concluded that the memo reflected Rehnquists own views rather than those of Justice Jackson

3.
Sandra Day O'Connor
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Sandra Day OConnor is a retired associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, serving from her appointment in 1981 by Ronald Reagan until her retirement in 2006. She was the first woman to serve as a Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. Prior to OConnors tenures on the Court, she was an elected official, on July 1,2005, she announced her intention to retire effective upon the confirmation of a successor. Samuel Alito was nominated to take her seat in October 2005, considered a federalist and a moderate Republican, OConnor tended to approach each case narrowly without arguing for sweeping precedents. She most frequently sided with the conservative bloc, although in the latter years of her tenure. OConnor was Chancellor of The College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia and she also served on the Board of Trustees for Colonial Williamsburg. Several publications have named OConnor among the most powerful women in the world, on August 12,2009, she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor of the United States, by President Barack Obama. She was born in El Paso, Texas, the daughter of Harry Alfred Day, a rancher and her sister was Ann Day, who served in the Arizona Legislature. She grew up on a ranch near Duncan, Arizona where she had to change automobile flat tires herself in dangerous environments. She later wrote a book with her brother, H. Alan Day, Lazy B, Growing up on a Cattle Ranch in the American West, about her childhood experiences on the ranch. For most of her schooling, OConnor lived in El Paso with her maternal grandmother, and attended school at the Radford School for Girls. She graduated sixth in her class at Austin High School in El Paso in 1946 and she attended Stanford University, where she received her B. A. in economics in 1950. She continued at the Stanford Law School for her LL. B and she has stated that she graduated third in her law school class, although Stanfords official position is that the law school did not rank students in 1952. On December 20,1952, six months after graduating law school. Her husband suffered from Alzheimers disease for twenty years until his death in 2009. After graduation from law school, at least forty law firms refused to interview her for a position as an attorney because she was a woman. She eventually found employment as a deputy county attorney in San Mateo, California, after she offered to work for no salary and without an office, sharing space with a secretary. When her husband was drafted, she decided to pick up and they remained there for three years before returning to the states, where they settled in Maricopa County, Ariz. to begin their family

4.
Antonin Scalia
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Antonin Gregory Scalia was an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1986 until his death in 2016. Appointed to the Court by President Ronald Reagan in 1986, Scalia was described as the anchor for the originalist and textualist position in the Courts conservative wing. Scalia was born in Trenton, New Jersey and he attended Xavier High School in Manhattan and then college at Georgetown University in Washington, D. C. He obtained his law degree from Harvard Law School and spent six years in a Cleveland law firm before becoming a law professor at the University of Virginia. In the early 1970s, he served in the Nixon and Ford administrations and he spent most of the Carter years teaching at the University of Chicago, where he became one of the first faculty advisers of the fledgling Federalist Society. In 1982, Ronald Reagan appointed him as judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, in 1986, Reagan appointed him to the Supreme Court. Scalia was unanimously confirmed by the Senate, becoming the first Italian-American justice and he was a strong defender of the powers of the executive branch, believing presidential power should be paramount in many areas. He opposed affirmative action and other policies that treated minorities as special groups and he filed separate opinions in many cases and often castigated the Courts majority in his minority opinions using scathing language. Antonin Scalia was born on March 11,1936, in Trenton, New Jersey and his father, Salvatore Eugene Scalia, an Italian immigrant from Sommatino, Sicily, was a graduate student at Columbia University and clerk at the time of his sons birth. The elder Scalia would become a professor of Romance languages at Brooklyn College and his mother, Catherine Louise Scalia, was born in Trenton to Italian immigrant parents and worked as an elementary school teacher. In 1939, Scalia and his moved to the Elmhurst section of Queens, New York. He later stated that he spent much of his time on schoolwork and admitted, while a youth, he was also active as a Boy Scout and was part of Scoutings national honor society, the Order of the Arrow. Classmate and future New York State official William Stern remembered Scalia in his school days. He could have been a member of the Curia and he was the top student in the class. He was brilliant, way above everybody else, in 1953, Scalia enrolled at Georgetown University, where he graduated valedictorian and summa cum laude in 1957 with a Bachelor of Arts in history. While in college, he was a champion debater in Georgetowns Philodemic Society. He took his junior year abroad at the University of Fribourg, Scalia studied law at Harvard Law School, where he was a Notes Editor for the Harvard Law Review. He graduated magna cum laude from Harvard in 1960, becoming a Sheldon Fellow of Harvard University, the fellowship enabled him to travel throughout Europe during 1960–1961

5.
Ruth Bader Ginsburg
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Ruth Bader Ginsburg is an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. Ginsburg was appointed by President Bill Clinton and took the oath of office on August 10,1993 and she is the second female justice and one of four female justices appointed on the Supreme Court. She is generally viewed as belonging to the wing of the Court. Ginsburg was one of the few women in her law school class, following law school, Ginsburg turned to academia. She was a professor at Rutgers School of Law–Newark and Columbia Law School, Ginsburg spent a considerable portion of her legal career as an advocate for the advancement of gender equality and womens rights, winning multiple victories arguing before the Supreme Court. She advocated as a lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union and was a member of its board of directors. In 1980, President Jimmy Carter appointed her to the U. S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Born in Brooklyn, New York City, Joan Ruth Bader is the daughter of Nathan and Celia Bader, Russian Jewish immigrants. The Baders older daughter, Marylin, died of meningitis at age 6 when Ruth was 14 months old, the family called Joan Ruth Kiki, a nickname Marylin had given her for being a kicky baby. When Kiki started school, Celia discovered that her daughters class had several other girls named Joan, although not devout, the Bader family belonged to East Midwood Jewish Center, a Conservative temple, where Ruth learned tenets of the Jewish faith and gained familiarity with the Hebrew language. At age thirteen, Ruth acted as the rabbi at a Jewish summer program at Camp Che-Na-Wah in Minerva. Her mother took a role in her education, taking her to the library often. Celia had been a student in her youth, graduating from high school at age 15. Celia wanted to see her daughter get more of an education, Ruth attended James Madison High School, whose law program later dedicated a courtroom in her honor. Celia struggled with cancer throughout Ruths high school years, and died the day before Ruths high school graduation, Bader attended Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, where she was a member of Alpha Epsilon Phi. While at Cornell she met Martin D. Ginsburg at age 17 and she graduated from Cornell with a Bachelor of Arts degree in government on June 23,1954. She was a member of Phi Beta Kappa and the female student in her graduating class. At age 21, she worked for the Social Security Administration office in Oklahoma and she gave birth to a daughter in 1955

6.
Nebraska
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Nebraska /nᵻˈbræskə/ is a state that lies in both the Great Plains and the Midwestern United States. Its area is just over 77,220 sq mi with almost 1.9 million people and its largest city is Omaha, which is on the Missouri River. The state is crossed by many trails and was explored by the Lewis. Nebraska was admitted as the 37th state of the United States in 1867 and it is the only state in the United States whose legislature is unicameral and officially nonpartisan. Nebraska is composed of two major regions, the Dissected Till Plains and the Great Plains. The Dissected Till Plains is a region of rolling hills. The Great Plains occupy most of western Nebraska, characterized by treeless prairie, the state has a large agriculture sector and is a major producer of beef, pork, corn, and soybeans. Two major climatic zones are represented in Nebraska, the half of the state has a humid continental climate, and the western half. Indigenous peoples lived in the region of present-day Nebraska for thousands of years before European exploration. The historic tribes in the state included the Omaha, Missouria, Ponca, Pawnee, Otoe, when European exploration, trade, and settlement began, both Spain and France sought to control the region. In the 1690s, Spain established trade connections with the Apaches, by 1703, France had developed a regular trade with the native peoples along the Missouri River in Nebraska, and by 1719 had signed treaties with several of these peoples. After war broke out between the two countries, Spain dispatched an expedition to Nebraska under Lieutenant General Pedro de Villasur in 1720. The party was attacked and destroyed near present-day Columbus by a force of Pawnees and Otoes. The massacre of the Villasur expedition effectively put an end to Spanish exploration of Nebraska for the remainder of the 18th century, in 1762, during the Seven Years War, France ceded the Louisiana territory to Spain. Frances withdrawal from the area left Britain and Spain competing for dominance along the Mississippi, by 1773, later that year, Mackays party built a trading post, dubbed Fort Carlos IV, near present-day Homer. In 1819, the United States established Fort Atkinson as the first U. S. Army post west of the Missouri River, the army abandoned the fort in 1827 as migration moved further west. European-American settlement did not begin in any numbers until after 1848, on May 30,1854, the US Congress created the Kansas and the Nebraska territories, divided by the Parallel 40° North, under the Kansas–Nebraska Act. The Nebraska Territory included parts of the current states of Colorado, North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming, the territorial capital of Nebraska was Omaha

7.
United States Constitution
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The United States Constitution is the supreme law of the United States of America. The Constitution, originally comprising seven articles, delineates the national frame of government, Articles Four, Five and Six entrench concepts of federalism, describing the rights and responsibilities of state governments and of the states in relationship to the federal government. Article Seven establishes the procedure used by the thirteen States to ratify it. In general, the first ten amendments, known collectively as the Bill of Rights, offer specific protections of individual liberty, the majority of the seventeen later amendments expand individual civil rights protections. Others address issues related to federal authority or modify government processes and procedures, Amendments to the United States Constitution, unlike ones made to many constitutions worldwide, are appended to the document. All four pages of the original U. S, according to the United States Senate, The Constitutions first three words—We the People—affirm that the government of the United States exists to serve its citizens. From September 5,1774 to March 1,1781, the Continental Congress functioned as the government of the United States. The process of selecting the delegates for the First and Second Continental Congresses underscores the revolutionary role of the people of the colonies in establishing a governing body. The Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union was the first constitution of the United States and it was drafted by the Second Continental Congress from mid-1776 through late-1777, and ratification by all 13 states was completed by early 1781. Under the Articles of Confederation, the governments power was quite limited. The Confederation Congress could make decisions, but lacked enforcement powers, implementation of most decisions, including modifications to the Articles, required unanimous approval of all thirteen state legislatures. The Continental Congress could print money but the currency was worthless, Congress could borrow money, but couldnt pay it back. No state paid all their U. S. taxes, some paid nothing, some few paid an amount equal to interest on the national debt owed to their citizens, but no more. No interest was paid on debt owed foreign governments, by 1786, the United States would default on outstanding debts as their dates came due. Internationally, the Articles of Confederation did little to enhance the United States ability to defend its sovereignty, most of the troops in the 625-man United States Army were deployed facing – but not threatening – British forts on American soil. They had not been paid, some were deserting and others threatening mutiny, spain closed New Orleans to American commerce, U. S. officials protested, but to no effect. Barbary pirates began seizing American ships of commerce, the Treasury had no funds to pay their ransom, if any military crisis required action, the Congress had no credit or taxing power to finance a response. Domestically, the Articles of Confederation was failing to bring unity to the sentiments and interests of the various states

8.
Roe v. Wade
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Roe v. Wade,410 U. S.113, is a landmark decision by the United States Supreme Court on the issue of abortion. It was decided simultaneously with a case, Doe v. Bolton. Arguing that these state interests became stronger over the course of a pregnancy, later, in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, the Court rejected Roes trimester framework while affirming its central holding that a woman has a right to abortion until fetal viability. The Roe decision defined viable as potentially able to live outside the mothers womb, Justices in Casey acknowledged that viability may occur at 23 or 24 weeks, or sometimes even earlier, in light of medical advances. According to the Court, the criminal abortion laws in effect in a majority of States today are of relatively recent vintage. Providing a historical analysis on abortion, Justice Harry Blackmun noted that abortion was resorted to without scruple in Greek, Blackmun also addressed the permissive and restrictive abortion attitudes and laws throughout history, noting the disagreements among leaders in those eras and the formative laws and cases. In the United States, in 1821, Connecticut passed the first state statute criminalizing abortion, every state had abortion legislation by 1900. In June 1969, 21-year-old Norma L. McCorvey discovered she was pregnant with her third child and she returned to Dallas, Texas, where friends advised her to assert falsely that she had been raped in order to obtain a legal abortion. However, this failed because there was no police report documenting the alleged rape. She attempted to obtain an abortion, but found that the unauthorized facility had been closed down by the police. Eventually, she was referred to attorneys Linda Coffee and Sarah Weddington, in 1970, Coffee and Weddington filed suit in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas on behalf of McCorvey. The defendant in the case was Dallas County District Attorney Henry Wade, McCorvey was no longer claiming her pregnancy was a result of rape, and later acknowledged that she had lied about having been raped. Rape is not mentioned in the opinions in the case. In addition, the court relied on Justice Arthur Goldbergs concurrence in Griswold v. Connecticut, the court, however, declined to grant an injunction against enforcement of the law. In 1971, Shirley Wheeler was charged with manslaughter after Florida hospital staff reported her illegal abortion to the police and she received a sentence of two years probation and under her probation, she had to move back into her parents house in North Carolina. Roe v. Wade reached the Supreme Court on appeal in 1970, the justices delayed taking action on Roe and a closely related case, Doe v. Bolton, until they had decided Younger v. Harris and United States v. Vuitch. The day after they announced their decision in Vuitch, they voted to hear both Roe and Doe, arguments were scheduled by the full Court for December 13,1971. Before the Court could hear the arguments, Justices Hugo Black

9.
John Paul Stevens
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John Paul Stevens is a retired associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, who served from December 19,1975, until his retirement on June 29,2010. At the time of his retirement, he was the oldest justice then serving, the second-oldest serving justice in the history of the Court, and he was nominated by President Gerald Ford to replace the Courts longest-serving justice, William O. Douglas. Stevens is widely considered to have been on the side of the Court at the time of his retirement. Stevens served with three Chief Justices, Stevens was born on April 20,1920, in Hyde Park, Chicago, Illinois, to a wealthy family. His paternal grandfather had formed a company and held real estate in Chicago. His father, Ernest James Stevens, was a lawyer who became a hotelier. He lost ownership of the hotels during the Great Depression and was convicted of embezzlement and his mother, Elizabeth Maude Stevens, was a high-school English teacher. Two of his three brothers also became lawyers. As a boy, Stevens attended the 1932 World Series baseball game in Chicagos Wrigley Field in which Babe Ruth called his shot, Stevens later recalled, Ruth did point to the center-field scoreboard. And he did hit the ball out of the park after he pointed with his bat, so it really happened. He also had the opportunity to meet several people of the era, including the famed aviators Amelia Earhart and Charles Lindbergh. The family lived in Hyde Park, and John Paul Stevens attended the University of Chicago Laboratory School. He subsequently obtained a bachelor of arts in English from the University of Chicago in 1941, while in college and he began work on his masters degree in English at the university in 1941, but soon decided to join the United States Navy. He enlisted on December 6,1941, one day before the attack on Pearl Harbor, Stevens was awarded a Bronze Star for his service in the codebreaking team whose work led to the downing of Japanese Admiral Isoroku Yamamotos plane in 1943. Stevens married Elizabeth Jane Shereen in June 1942, divorcing her in 1979, he married Maryan Mulholland Simon that December. He has four children, John Joseph, Kathryn, Elizabeth, with the end of World War II, Stevens returned to Illinois, intending to return to his studies in English, but was persuaded by his brother Richard, who was a lawyer, to attend law school. Stevens enrolled in the Northwestern University School of Law in 1945 and he was a brilliant student, earning the highest GPA in the history of the law school. He received his J. D. in 1947, graduating cum laude

10.
Planned Parenthood v. Casey
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Planned Parenthood v. Casey,505 U. S.833, was a United States Supreme Court case in which the constitutionality of several Pennsylvania state statutory provisions regarding abortion was challenged. The Courts plurality opinion reaffirmed the holding of Roe v. But the case was a turn from the Roe decision to tie an abortions legality to the third trimester, in theory, its aim was to make the womans decision more thoughtful and informed. Applying its new standard of review, the Court upheld four regulations, the Court in Roe was the first to establish abortion as a fundamental right protected by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The majority in Roe further held that women have a privacy interest protecting their right to abortion embedded in the liberty clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, the five provisions at issue in Casey are summarized below. A woman seeking abortion had to give her consent prior to the procedure. A woman seeking abortion had to sign a statement stating that she had notified her husband prior to undergoing the procedure, minors had to get the informed consent of at least one parent or guardian prior to the abortion procedure. Alternatively, minors could seek judicial bypass in lieu of consent, §§3207,3214, and 3214 Reporting Requirements. Certain reporting and record keeping mandates were imposed on facilities providing abortion services, the case was a seminal one in the history of abortion decisions in the United States. Both were viewed as ostensible conservatives compared with their predecessors and this left the Court with eight Republican-appointed justices—six of whom had been appointed by Presidents Reagan or Bush, both of whom were well known for their opposition to Roe. Finally, the only remaining Democratic appointee—Justice Byron White—had been one of the two dissenters from the original Roe decision, the case was argued by ACLU attorney Kathryn Kolbert for Planned Parenthood, with Linda J. Wharton serving as Co-Lead Counsel. Pennsylvania attorney general Ernie Preate argued the case for the State, the plaintiffs were five abortion clinics, a class of physicians who provided abortion services, and one physician representing himself independently. They filed suit in the U. S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania to enjoin the state from enforcing the five provisions and have them declared facially unconstitutional. The District Court, after a bench trial, held that all the provisions were unconstitutional. The Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit affirmed in part and reversed in part, then-Circuit Judge Samuel Alito sat on that three-judge appellate panel and dissented from the courts invalidation of that requirement. However, Justice Kennedy changed his mind shortly thereafter and joined with fellow Reagan-Bush justices Sandra Day OConnor, except for the three opening sections of the OConnor-Kennedy-Souter opinion, Casey was a divided judgment, as no other sections of any opinion were joined by a majority of justices. The authors of the plurality opinion began by noting the U. S. governments previous challenges to Roe v. Wade, Liberty finds no refuge in a jurisprudence of doubt. Yet 19 years after our holding that the Constitution protects a right to terminate her pregnancy in its early stages, Roe v. Wade

The nervous system is the part of an animal that coordinates its actions by transmitting signals to and from different …

Horizontal section of the head of an adult female, showing skin, skull, and brain with grey matter (brown in this image) and underlying white matter

Major elements in synaptic transmission. An electrochemical wave called an action potential travels along the axon of a neuron. When the wave reaches a synapse, it provokes release of a small amount of neurotransmitter molecules, which bind to chemical receptor molecules located in the membrane of the target cell.

Map of the boundaries of the United States Courts of Appeals (by color) and United States District Courts. All District Courts lie within the boundary of a single jurisdiction usually in a state (heavier lines); some states have more than one District Court (lighter lines denote those jurisdictions)